Disclaimer: Craig McCracken is the visionary behind the Powerpuff Girls

Synopsis: Young Blossom can't seem to find sleep, and visions of a certain Monkey aren't helping her problem either.

A/N: Inspired by Linkin Park's song Waiting For The End.


Understanding between the Unrequited

It was odd for Blossom to stay up so late after bedtime. Still it seemed that tonight was the time the sandman decided to exact his long overdue revenge on her. A sleeping blond to her left, a snoring brunette to the right. She stared at her sisters with envious eyes as she sat upright and watched them slumber, they looked so peaceful. With each passing moment the phrase "Misery loves company" became an increasingly found in her heart. Nevertheless she resisted the siren call to wake them. Blossom loathed every minute that passed as she stared at a pastel wall. Even more she hated how much her mind had been wandering in the silence of the night. Bringing to light ideas she'd rather leave buried. It was too painful to take a glance at the clock in the corner to see how much sleep she had lost. Once again she tried to settle herself back down to bed. Eyes shut tight. Maybe this attempt would bring the desired results? It was no use, even in the most comfortable surroundings the thoughts spinning in her head would not settle.

"Are you asleep?" There it was the voice she, for some unexplained reason, expected to hear but at the same time was equally shocking to be heard. Shooting up, sitting like a stiff tin soldier a surprised wide eyed gaze turned to daggers towards the figure at the foot of the bed. He was short for a man of his presumed age but not for a monkey and only stood a good head above Blossom and her young sleeping sisters. Still, his presence was palpable "Mojo Jojo what are you doing here?" She quietly spat in a tone, loud enough to be menacing, but not quite so booming as to wake her sisters.

"Blossom it is I who should ask you this same query, and question. As to why I, Mojo Jojo, am here, now, present and accounted for in your place of residence. " His elaborate hand gestures emphasizing his speech drudged up bad memories of monologues long past in her mind. That and the fact that he had just accused her, the perfect one in the crime fighting trio, of having ill manners put Blossom in an even fouler mood. She kept her wits, despite the fatigue, and was able to quickly put the situation into context with ought missing a beat.

"I'm tired and you are nothing more than a manifestation of my thoughts. Which is the only thing keeping me from waking my sisters and blasting you into next Friday." Her whispers were short and fierce in tone, the monkey man laughed. He looked like he knew all too well what it was like to receive a pummeling from the Pink Puff and her two sleeping siblings. For a figment of an overactive imagination, he sure was lifelike. "Very good of you to realize so quickly, and by that I mean it is good that you were able to come to this realization that you are now at so quickly. But that still does not explain why your mind has conjured, conceived, and thought of me this evening. Which is to say that I, which as much as I hate to say is a part of you, is at a loss as to why I am currently standing before you. Meaning that I, which is to say you, do not understand why you thought of I, Mojo Jojo." The sentence was long and the meaning was garbled and practically lost, but Blossom understood.

"To be honest, I don't know why I thought of you Mojo." For a moment both of them wore introspective expressions pondering for an answer.

"Could it not be that you wanted to see I, or for that matter the one that is the real me and not an image of me projected through your mind, Mojo Jojo?" Defiantly she shook her head. "No, that can't be it! I saw you today, you interrupted my show-n-tell time, remember? Today you attacked Townsville in a giant Pickle Robot. It took forever to get the Mayors permission to destroy it!" The smug grin that crawled onto his face as she regaled the encounter was irritating to no end for her. "I swear and here I heard you were as smart as I was!" She crawled over to sit at the edge of the bed. It was too risky sitting so closely to her sisters while the current conversation was becoming increasingly more heated. "HAH! A child like you could never simulate my awesome intellect, which is to say you are too dumb to make me smart enough version of me in this imagining, vision, and fantasy. Well what, is your bright explanation for that which is occurring silly, girl? Or are you to dense, dumb, and of average inelegance to think of one?" He shot back,

"Well maybe I imagined you because I just wanted some dumb animal to fight with!" She spat out louder than she had planned, luckily Bubbles and Buttercup were still fast asleep. How they dozed through this fight so blissfully was beyond her. After her last quip Blossom and Mojo just glared at each other. Both of their egos were hurt, and for a while both pouted in silence, neither wishing to break it for the other.

This wasn't how this conversation was supposed to go, that odd thought popped into her mind. She herself was surprised that she would think something so odd, this situation was going no differently than expected. This mood the feeling that something remained unsaid between the two, it was all the same. For some reason looking at the space between the two of them, the animosity that seemed to fill the room. It filled Blossom with an unnamed and familiar emotion. The same emotion she got whenever she engaged in battle with the real Mojo. She couldn't stand it.

"I'm sorry." Were the words to first cut the silence, but the person who said it made the mysterious sentiment inside of her grow all the more. "I will only say this to you sense I am not real, and merely an illusion, and thereby will suffer no loss of pride." Explaining his apology made her arch nemesis all the more foreign to her. "I-I suppose, I'm sorry too. Calling you a dumb animal was a bit unfair. I mean I don't even know of many humans who can manage to build a new death ray and robot, everyday." As conversation began to pick again it was esier to ignore the feeling rising inside of her.

"And who knows maybe you really are as smart as me in real life, and I'm only saying this because you yourself. Aren't well… Yourself." She grinned sheepishly, this was just too odd. Before realizing it she went on to tack on a thought she herself didn't like to think about. "It's too bad you had to be evil, when we worked together, in the past, we accomplished a lot of great things. Who knows, it might have been fun if you hadn't…" She tapered off there, disbelief in herself that she said such things to Mojo. No matter how fictional he was, she was still directing those to a creature that regularly injected unwarranted amounts of strife in her young life. It all so didn't help how silent he was being, she looked him in the eye to get a better read, still slightly embarrassed from her outburst. His eyes, however imaginary, they held that same mysterious emotion she was currently struggling with.

"I'm sorry, it would never last." Mojo was solom in tone, holding her gaze captive. She didn't understand why what he said hurt so much or why she couldn't look away. Blossom climbed down from her bed, how far off the ground it seemed now to her when she didn't use her ability of flight. "What are you going on about Mojo?" She closed the gap between them,

"I wish that things were different as well." His speech was uncharacteristically smooth now, his body language was oddly subdued, and his attitude was uncharacteristically kind. It was more of the sweet personality she envisioned him having when they met for the first time. The person she had thought he was back in that ally only a few years ago, before the truth and betrayal. Blossom knew now that this was not the, conniving, Mojo that she fought on a regular basis. This was a fake, and image of what her mind wanted to see, but at the same time she had never believed him to be more real.

"Don't say stuff like that, I don't understand." Without noticing her speech had long since leaving the realm of a whisper. They were standing face to face so close she had never noticed how tired and worn his body had become due to their countless battles. Or perhaps she had noticed, and just pretended not to.

"You understand very well what I say Blossom. Its best for you to forget what it feels like." His stern yet warm commanding voice was so much like it was back then. That unknown emotion she had been wrestling inside with during the conversation suddenly overpowered her iron will. For unknown reason the inches that separated them were equated to an unbearable pain in her heart, and so she closed them with an embrace around his neck.

"I don't understand!" There was no need for her to yell out her pleas and risk waking her sisters. "Why are you acting like this Mojo?" She couldn't believe what she was saying, or what she was doing. Holding tight of something that wasn't there she felt a warmth and comfort that was nonexistent as he held her back. Slowly she saw his figure fading. "Stupid girl, let it go." He mumbled through red hair, embracing her gently as she clung to him more burying her face with clenched eyes into his shaggy fur. If she held him tighter surely he wouldn't disappear. "No! I don't want to! I don't want to let this go! I don't want to let you go!" Shocked herself at what she had just said She heard him let out a sad low sigh "We're hopeless yet you still cling…"

She opened her eyes to look at him, to question the meaning behind his words, but found that she was lying in her bed. The Sun was just beginning to rise and her sisters still asleep. She looked around for her imaginary Mojo. He was gone. He had disappeared along with the dream but the odd emotion he left her with was still present. Blossom felt a dull ache settle over her unstable feelings, as if she had reached some painful understanding of sorts on something very important. However what it was, she couldn't say. Blossom was sure though that, with age, she would find out. But for right now, Blossom was too young to realize that this was a time when she should cry.